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Tuesday, 11 November 2014

JUSTICE MINISTER STARTS MEDIA ATTACK

Swaziland’s Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Sibusiso Shongwe has called
for a new law to further restrict the news media in the kingdom.

He said Members of the Swazi Parliament should
create legislation as soon as possible to regulate the media.

He also said that unknown entities were
funding the private media in Swaziland to encourage them to discredit the kingdom’s
courts and Judiciary.

Shongwe was speaking during a
debate of his ministry’s second quarter budget performance report by the House of
Assembly Portfolio Committee on Monday (10 November 2014).

The Times
of Swaziland, the only independent daily newspaper in the kingdom ruled by
King Mswati III, who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, quoted
him saying, ‘The media has an agenda to fight the courts and I wonder who is funding
it.’

The newspaper added that he said there was nothing wrong with the
Judiciary, stating that the media was just creating uncertainty, which would
lead to the rest of the citizens not trusting the courts yet everyone depended
on the justice system.

Censorship and intimidation
of media is rife in Swaziland where Bheki Makhubu, editor of the Nation magazine and Thulani Maseko, a
journalist and human rights lawyer, are serving two
years in jail for writing articles critical of the Swazi Chief Justice Michael Ramodibedi.

Nearly all radio and television stations are controlled by the state and
news reports are heavily censored in favour of the King and the Royal Family.

In August 2014 Minister of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) Dumisani
Ndlangamandla said the Swaziland
Government would not let up on its control of state radio, He said state media existed primarily to serve the interests of the state.

The Times reported that Shongwe said the
media got away with a lot and published whatever they pleased because they knew
that all they had to do was just issue a small retraction in the corner of page
two.

‘The police, for example, are punished if they have wrongfully beaten up a
person, but the media, just like lawyers in some instances, gets away with a
lot,’ it quoted him saying.